The present invention is directed to a system and method for online shopping.
Retailers spend over $6 billion in online advertising, the most of any category. They invest even more in offline above and below the line advertising driving traffic to digital channels. EMarketer predicts that the online apparel and accessories category is expected to grow by 20% to $40.9 billion in 2012.
Retailers have already invested heavily and plan to invest more in driving traffic to their website properties, and now also mobile sites and apps, growing their email database, increasing their social media presence, and leveraging others social media presence . . . with the #1 driver being proof of ROI.
Point of Sale (POS) leaders like NCR see a need to evolve their products to a “cloud-based point-of-sale (POS) software platform that enables independent retailers to manage transactions, track sales and inventory, process credit cards and market to customers on both POS touch screen terminals and Apple mobile devices.”
FIG. 1 shows an exemplary conventional shopping system. Online shopping also has the disadvantage that the buyer cannot physically inspect the item. While that disadvantage is minor for bookstores, it is a major problem for apparel retailers, since customers prefer to try on apparel before buying.
To overcome that disadvantage, various techniques for virtual modeling of apparel, particularly eyewear, have been developed. An illustrative example of such a technique is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,983,201 to Fay. The online retailer obtains digital images of the customer's head and face to obtain size and image data. Later, the customer can visit the online retailer's Web site from any location, such as the customer's home, to view various kinds of eyeglasses. The online retailer's server generates images of the customer with the eyeglasses resized to fit the customer's head to show how the customer would look in each kind of eyeglasses.
Apparel shopping is a social event. Many customers do not simply wish to see for themselves how they would look in a particular item of apparel; instead, they bring along friends or family members and solicit those friends' or family members' opinions before making a buying decision. Shoppers may also solicit the opinions of store clerks or of complete strangers. It is difficult to do any of those things in front of a computer. Furthermore, trips to brick-and-mortar shopping malls have a social role that online shopping has not yet duplicated.
It is also known in the art to allow potential buyers to exchange information about items over the Internet. Such information exchanges typically take the form of non-real-time message boards such as those on Deja.com, or the reader reviews of Amazon.com. The use of chat rooms to let potential buyers exchange information is taught by U.S. Pat. No. 6,041,311 to Chislenko et al, U.S. Pat. No. 6,049,777 to Sheena et al and U.S. Pat. No. 6,058,379 to Odom et al. However, such information exchanges do not overcome the above-noted problems with Fay and similar techniques. U.S. Pat. No. 6,901,379 discloses a system that allows a user to browse an online retailer's Web site or a mirror site and select an item and model the item online by having a server generate a digital image of the user wearing the item. If the user is still unsure as to whether to buy the item, the user can enter an online chat room in which the online modeling image is displayed to other users. The user can then receive the other users' feedback before deciding whether to buy the item. In a second embodiment, multiple online modeling images are generated to provide the user with a customized catalog, which can be of items for a single merchant or multiple merchants.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,949,659 discloses systems for selecting items to recommend to a user. The system includes a recommendation engine with a plurality of recommenders, and each recommender identifies a different type of reason for recommending items. In one embodiment, each recommender retrieves item preference data and generates candidate recommendations responsive to a subset of that data. The recommenders also score the candidate recommendations. In certain embodiments, a normalization engine normalizes the scores of the candidate recommendations provided by each recommender. A candidate selector selects at least a portion of the candidate recommendations based on the normalized scores to provide as recommendations to the user. The candidate selector also outputs the recommendations with associated reasons for recommending the items.
U.S. Pat. No. 8,170,919, issued to the assignee of the instant invention, discloses an inventive system and method for collaborative commerce that includes activating an art board, placing items onto the art board, inviting users to interact with the art board, and collaborating with the invited users. Additional features and functions include purchasing items shown on the art board, including by placing the items in a shopping cart, using e-mail, text messaging, and instant messaging to invite users, who may be chosen from a buddy list. Collaborating can be performed using voice chatting, video chatting, instant messaging, and text messaging, and includes examining reviews, ratings, reputations, and recommendations, and also includes displaying details regarding the items. In addition, reports comprising information regarding the items can be generated. A toolbar can be located on the art board and used to initiate inviting of users and placing of items onto the art board.